


Everything Stays

by EmmyJay



Series: Ivory Ascending [9]
Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreamfasting, Gen, Implied Deet/Brea/Rian pre-OT3, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Sibling Bonding, Sisters, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21994441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyJay/pseuds/EmmyJay
Summary: Two sisters play catch-up on each other's horrible experiences.
Relationships: Brea & Seladon (Dark Crystal)
Series: Ivory Ascending [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1528451
Kudos: 17





	Everything Stays

For the first time in what felt like a thousand trine, Seladon woke without the prodding of the Chamberlain, or the concerned touch of her Friends, or the remnants of a nightmare propelling her to consciousness.

Instead, her eyes (or eye, she supposed, with the one still swollen shut) opened softly, her mind thick with sleep; she swallowed a yawn, and let herself take stock of her surroundings at a leisurely pace. Her back was cold where it pressed against the stone wall, a position she did not normally sleep in for that very reason, but at the moment it was unavoidable—with two Gelfling squeezed into a bed made only for one, some discomfort was to be expected. It was even welcome, and she turned her focus downward to the warmth cuddled against her front, quickly finding the little golden head tucked up under her chin.

_'It wasn't a dream.'_

The pair of them, herself and Brea, had exchanged only a few words upon recognising each other the night before. Instead they had opted to collapse into one another, holding and babbling and sobbing apologies. Brea had clung to her tightly enough that Seladon's injuries screamed in protest, and she in turn had cradled her baby sister's face in both hands, her good eye drinking in the sight of her: alive and whole and _here_ , despite all the odds in all of Thra.

At some point they had crowded into the bed and fallen quickly asleep, still clutching each other tightly. The position was nothing new to Seladon—often in her youth she had rolled over in the night to find wide childling eyes staring at her over the edge of her coverings, begging without words to be let in. And more often than not Seladon would lift the blankets with little more than a grumble, so that Brea could scramble in beside her. She had always been the one Brea ran to when the latter was small and had a nightmare, looking for protection, or comfort, or even just the company of her sister.

When had that changed, Seladon wondered. It was a puzzling as trying to remember the last time she had laughed before her exchange with Tavra. So many little things she hadn't even realised were missing from her life, until her sisters came about to remind her.

Speaking of whom...

Brea burbled a jumble of nonsense, and when Seladon glanced down again she was met with the thoroughly un-princesslike sight of her sister's mouth wide open in a yawn. Her eyes fluttered open as her mouth closed, and there were tears in them, though whether they were from some lingering dream or simply squeezed out with the force of her yawn, Seladon could not tell. Those eyes focused on her face, and immediately Brea's whole expression seemed to brighten, all traces of lethargy chased away.

"It wasn’t a dream," she murmured, echoing Seladon's own earlier thoughts. "You're really **here**. I thought..."

Brea's head fell forward, and she mashed her nose again against her sister's collar. "No one knew where you were," she continued, muffled. "We heard word on occasion; it said you were at Stone-In-The-Wood, after their capture, and then— _nothing_. Your whole entourage just disappeared, and I..."

Her face was hidden, but Seladon could feel the minute trembles that shook her frame. The arms around her tightened, clutching as though her life depended on keeping her close. It was so like the way Brea held onto her a lifetime ago, hiding from some monster she had imagined was lurking inside her armoire, and Seladon saw no point in fighting the instinct to return the gesture.

"I thought for sure that you were dead."

Brea reeked like days-old sweat, her hair thick and matted with grime, but it was a smell so quintessentially _Gelfling_ that Seladon inhaled it like vapours. It had been so long since she had had someone to simply _touch_ , without games or threats or violence. And though she had never been the most tactile of her sisters, she still found herself starved for it after two unum.

"I'm here," she promised. "I'm not going anywhere."

Eventually, however, their position became too uncomfortable to maintain any longer. Brea was first to rise, immediately setting about taking stock of the room, while Seladon was somewhat slower, her abused body still protesting anything but the carefulest of movement. She perched on the edge of the bed while her sister explored, and noticed for the first time since waking the gnawing hunger in her stomach.

A quick glance around told her that there had been no meal brought for them, and she had not eaten since the morning before—and **that** had been forced out of her by the General's brutality. She didn't doubt Brea was in a similar state, given the chaos surrounding her arrival, yet her sister showed no sign of it. Not that that was particularly surprising, of course, as Brea would frequently forget to eat when she was absorbed on one of her excursions to the library. It was hardly unusual for her to miss an entire day's worth of meals that way, unless Tavra or one of the Paladins was sent to fetch her.

 _Tavra._ Oh, how Seladon hoped her Threader would return soon. Perhaps she could convince it to facilitate a reunion between all three of them, together again at last. Perhaps she could make that a surprise for both sisters.

"I'm still not sure I believe it," Brea was saying, and Seladon refocused to find her combing the edges of the room, peering into every corner as though searching for a secret passageway between the stones—and given what she had found poking around the Citadel's throne room, that was likely exactly what she was doing. "You've been here all this time, and I never knew. **No one** knew."

 _'Aughra knew,'_ Seladon wanted to say. _'The Arathim knew.'_ But she kept the words in her mouth for now; it would do no good to start a fight. Dimly she was aware of a time when she would not have held back in that regard, when the Unamoth silk was still covering her eyes to the truth of their world.

She must have looked far away in her thoughts, because her silence pulled Brea away from her investigations. She crossed back to the bed, her feet padding softly across the stone floor. A hand landed on her knee, and when Seladon met her sister's eyes she saw concern there, a deep-seated worry that told her the changes in her manner had not gone un-noticed.

"What's happened to you, Seladon?"

It was a question Seladon had expected and dreaded in equal measure, yes she would not have made much of a princess had she not carefully honed her skills in speechcraft. She gave Brea a shortened summary of her imprisonment: her arrival at the Castle and the Skeksis' revealing of their true nature; the Chamberlain's doting, the General's violence. She skirted carefully around other matters, in particular the Emperor's attentions—she was not fool enough to believe she could keep such things hidden indefinitely, but nor was she in any hurry to share such an ordeal with her sweet sister.

At first Brea paced while she spoke, and when she grew tired of that she pulled over the chair to sit, hands twisting in her lap. It had never been in Brea's nature to be idle, save when she was so engrossed in one of her tomes that she forgot the rest of the world. Even now she squirmed, clearly discontent with her lack of options. _'In that I suppose we are the same.'_

"And what of you?" It was Seladon's turn to ask, and she was eager to not be the focus of their conversation. "What's happened to **you** , Brea?"

Her sister was not quick to respond. Instead she seemed to turn her focus inward, turning over their time apart in her mind, thinking on it long enough that Seladon felt unease creeping on her own thoughts.

"So much has happened," she said at last. "I don't even know where to begin."

"Then don't talk," Seladon replied, and held out a hand in offering. "Just show."

Entering the dreamfast was like falling into a true dream: an easy descent into another level of consciousness, the slip so effortless that it was hard to say exactly when it began. In the back of her mind Seladon felt a prickle of fear at the touch of someone else's consciousness, but the distance between dreamfasting and the taste of Essence was as far apart as drowning at sea and relaxing in a warm bath. So long as she kept her head above water, so too could she keep the panic at bay.

 _Start at the beginning,_ she pushed into the space between them. _How did you escape the Lords' custody?_

The first memory that Brea showed her was chaotic, full of screams and begging as she was dragged away from the Citadel, forced into a carriage with the Grottan and the chosen Paladins. The sight of it, the realisation of the sheer terror her sister had known that day, caused guilt to swell in Seladon's chest, and she squeezed the hand that she held. _I'm so sorry._

Brea squeezed back, reassuring and warm. _It brought me to where I needed to be._

The creature that nearly tore the carriage apart and sent the Skeksis running was one Seladon knew at once, from when it had burst from the throne beneath her ( _Lore,_ Brea informed her, _his name is Lore_ ). With it were four Gelfling and a single Podling, though their efforts to free the captives were overshadowed by the creature's. Among them, Seladon was startled to realise she recognised two of Laesid's maudren: one a rugged-looking boy, who she had only met once from afar many trine past ( _Gurjin?_ , she questioned, and Brea confirmed) and the other a girl she had never laid eyes on, but from her resemblance to Gurjin knew could only be Naia, Laesid's eldest daughter and heir. The other two were a Spriton whose face she recognised from the dreamspace, and Rian the Stonewood traitor ( _not a traitor,_ Brea insisted; _I know,_ Seladon assured), the latter of whom quickly set to rallying the freed Paladins to their cause.

From there they split: the Paladins to spread word of the Skeksis' betrayal, while the smaller group struck out to follow Lore's direction. They travelled under the Sisters, secreted away under overhanging cliffs and sleeping in caves along the Claw Mountains. In times of quiet Brea's eyes would linger, first on Rian, and then on the Grottan girl Seladon had known only briefly, not even long enough to recall a name ( _Deet_ ). Her journal lay open in her lap, a pair lovingly sketched within. Understanding dawned, and Seladon let out a long, heavy sigh.

 _Really, Brea?_ she chided disapprovingly. _Couldn't **one** of my sisters have fallen for a Vapran?_

Her eyes were closed, of course. But she didn't need to see her sister's blush to know it was there.

 _We had to get to the Circle of the Suns,_ Brea pressed on, in a pointed tone meant to change the subject. _We had no means of crossing the Crystal Desert on our own. But then one came to us._

The Dousan who called himself the southern Sandmaster was admirable, Seladon supposed—for a death-worshipper. Tall and strong in build, his features not truly handsome but oddly striking, even hidden beneath a sea of blues and golds. She watched him recite his clearly-practiced speech, present his gift of bones, and felt her hackles rise defensively.

 _Peace, sister._ Now it was Brea's turn to chide. _I know how to handle his type._

And handle him she did, in a manner of poise that made a blossom of pride bloom in Seladon's chest. Quickly enough they were aboard the Crystal Skimmer the Dousan called Bennu, riding within its maw as it soared high above the sands, watching the grains swirl and twist from the edge of its jaw. Brea sat with her journal, attempting to capture the scene below, but the patterns changed too swiftly for her pen to keep up. After a time she closed its pages in disappointment, and determined instead to commit the image to memory—a memory she now shared of a world ever-shifting, ever-turning.

The Skeksis who greeted them upon their arrival at the Circle of the Suns was so wholly unlike the other lords that Seladon balked. And when the Mystic showed itself, she sent a questioning prod across their dreamfast, doubting her sister's memory.

 _I would have doubted it myself,_ Brea confessed in reply. _But I was there, Seladon—I saw it, saw **them**._

What came next was a muddled jumble of half-conscious observations, bleeding into a confused witness of some manner of performance. Again Seladon prodded, and this time Brea returned with a feeling of abashment.

 _There was...a lot of information that they gave us,_ she apologised. _It might take some time to go over it all._

Seladon considered the options. _We can come back to it later,_ she decided. _For now, focus on how you arrived at the Castle._

The memory stuttered forward: a farewell interrupted, a figure descending from above; another Skeksis Seladon did not recognise, another Mystic she never dreamed existed. _The Hunter,_ Brea identified the first; "the Archer," the memory of Wanderer called the latter.

"You and I are one." The Archer's voice came from somewhere, but the words were indistinct, Brea's attention too focused on waking her guardian creature to truly regard them. "What I feel, **you** feel!"

"Perhaps," the Hunter's voice replied, and now Brea looked up, the memory beholding again the scene before her. "But I will not leave empty-handed!"

He **lunged**.

He moved faster than Seladon had ever seen a Skeksis move, even stuck trough with arrows. He bore himself on Brea with a snarl, a ghastly apparition of teeth and claws, tearing her dress and rending her flesh—

_**NO**!_

The dreamfast ended abruptly as Seladon tore her hand away, the suddenness of it leaving them both reeling. She could hear Brea's startled gasp, her name repeated with growing anxiety, but Seladon could not see. There was only the gaping maw descending on her, the fearsome talons tearing at her as she was snatched up like a childling's toy, the taste of another's memory lingering on her tongue—

Her body heaved, but all that came up was bile, bubbling like acid in her mouth. It burned away the other tastes, of stolen Gelfling and half-rotted flesh and her own warm blood. She held it a moment on her tongue before allowing it to spill out, onto the bedsheets and floor in a foul mess.

"-eladon! Seladon!"

A pair of hands (soft, much too soft for Skeksis) cupped Seladon's face and turned it around, and through her swimming vision she saw Brea's frightened eyes. The sight grounded her, and she gulped a shaking breath, willing her heart to calm its frantic beating.

"I'm alright," she gasped when she had air enough to speak. "Forgive me, I—I do not know what came over me."

The lie seemed to sooth Brea. Her expression eased, and the hands cupping Seladon's face dropped to her lap, her gaze following.

"I understand," she said, quietly. "He frightens me, too."

Brea did not attempt to resume the dreamfast, for which Seladon was quietly thankful. Instead she continued her tale in words: the Hunter snatching her onto the same Crystal Skimmer that had brought them there, now manned by only a single Gelfling who sobbed in terror when he so much as glanced her way. They rode on its back this time, exposed to the wind and buffeting sand. And when it dropped them at the Desert outskirts, the Hunter dragged her in a cage through the last stretch of the Endless Forest before they reached the Castle.

"We were slower to travel on foot," Brea recalled. "He was wounded leaving the Desert, as you saw." Seladon **had** seen, the second Mystic from their dreamfast loosing its arrows upon the Skeksis. The blows had not looked to hit anything vital, meant to cripple rather than kill—yet if the Hunter had forged single-mindedly ahead without rest or recovery, especially exposed to the harsh mercies of the Crystal Desert...

Brea's next words confirmed her musing. "He could barely stand; he collapsed the moment we reached the throne room. The other Lords were frantic over him." So that had been the source of the wailing, then. Brea's eyes remained on her hands, fingers twisting anxiously in her lap. "Seladon...he was **dying**."

The thought of a Skeksis dying, the very idea that they _could_ die, was a concept utterly foreign to Seladon—and by the look on her face recalling it, Brea felt the same. For all of Gelfling history the Lords had been there, the only constant in an ever-changing world. It was why the idea of fighting against them had felt so fruitless, in spite of the Arathim's confidence, that seed of doubt ever-present in Seladon's mind. But if what Brea was saying was true?

 _'We can kill them,'_ she thought in awe. _'If we cut them, they will bleed; if we bleed them, they will **die**.'_

The notion was comforting, even if the fact that none had succeeded in a thousand trine was still a troubling thing.

"They brought him down to...I suppose it must have been the Scientist's laboratory, deep in the dungeons. They put me in another cage, like a holding cell along the wall. I couldn't hear much of what they were saying from where I was, but they sounded desperate. They were ready to do anything to ensure the Hunter survived. And after a time, they decided..."

The words petered off, and when Seladon looked to Brea she saw her mouth moving soundlessly, as though struggling to find the words. Dread flooded her, and she reached again for her sister—only to hesitate at the last moment, fingers hovering uncertainly in the air.

"What did they decide?" she asked, but Brea could only shake her head, one hand clapping over her mouth. A thousand images flooded Seladon's mind all at once, of every cruel and vile thing the Skeksis might have done to make Brea so frightened of her own memory. Among them were horrors like those that had been visited upon her, and she found herself clutching the sheets on the bed in a desperate attempt not to throw herself screaming onto the floor.

"...alright," she said at length. "I won't make you continue."

The look Brea gave her was thankful—though that only filled Seladon with further dread.

Silence overtook them, then, heavy and uncomfortable. For a moment Brea looked like she might crawl back into her sister's arms, to hide again from monsters in her armoire—except these monsters were real, not the imaginings of a frightened childling. Seladon would have welcomed her as she always had, even in the time before when she hadn't believed there was anything to hide from; but Brea only turned her attention to her own hands, fingers twisting around themselves. Seladon looked to them, a familiar sight, a restless anxiety normally quieted by grasping a pen.

 _'She does not have her journal,'_ she realised with a start. _'Did the Skeksis take it from her?'_

From the corridor outside, Seladon heard the squeaking of wheels overlaid with hushed voices chattering. It caught Brea's attention as well, and together they looked to the door, Brea's ears twitching forward at the grating sound of a key in the lock. Sensing her sister's thoughts Seladon latched her fingers around her wrist, squeezing gently in warning.

 _Do not try to run,_ she urged, daring to dreamfast just enough to project the words. _We will not get far until we can come up with a plan._ She let go before Brea could reply, and the door swung inward with a _creak_ , bringing with it the unmistakable smell of breakfast.

The scent made Seladon's stomach groan with want; Brea must have felt the same, because she jumped from her seat—not to run, but to rush to assist. The Podling at the front barked a warning, shooing her back, and Brea surprisingly acquiesced, letting the team of them shuffle into the room.

" _Doruchak,_ " the same Podling announced, taking a single bowl and placing it on the bedside table. There was only the one serving, and Seladon eyed it in question. Were they meant to share? Had the kitchens not been informed of the second prisoner sharing her room?

The answer came as quickly as she could ponder it. The Podling who had spoken, the one who seemed to be in charge, waved Brea toward the bowl. At the same time, Seladon felt a tug on her sleeve, and she looked down to find another of the group gazing up at her, its gaze pulled tight in what might have been sympathy.

"All-Maudra _dodyi_ ," it said, beckoning. "Emperor want see."

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter gave me SO. MUCH. TROUBLE. Largely because the dreamfast just WOULD NOT keep to a reasonable length. *Shakes fist* Hopefully this little Obligatory Recap Episode wasn't too terribly boring for you guys.


End file.
